


stay awake

by jennshiki



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Lance's Insecurities, Langst, M/M, lance feels like he's not very important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9930314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennshiki/pseuds/jennshiki
Summary: Keith's about to get shot. Lance jumps in the way. After all, it doesn't matter as much if he's the one who dies, right?





	

It happened in slow motion. The gun raising, and Lance yelling out a warning to Keith. But he didn’t, he _couldn’t_ turn around nearly quick enough to see the enemy soldier. To react. To dodge. He was going to get shot. 

In that split second, Lance consciously made a decision. If Keith got seriously injured, or…or something worse, how would it affect the team? And if it was Lance instead, how would that affect the team differently? In other words, who was more important, and who was more expendable?

And so Lance chose. He jumped into the line of fire, right in front of Keith, acting as a shield. A barrier. Because what else could he do? He couldn’t let his teammate die. 

And then it was as if time fell back into its normal pace, seconds ticking like seconds instead of minutes. Pain exploded in his abdomen as the laser bore right through his armor and pierced into his skin. 

He found himself gasping and collapsing onto the ground, hand desperately clutching his side. It was warm and sticky, and he didn’t even have to look to know what it was. He was bleeding. Oh man, oh man, he was going to die. 

There was noise, oh so much noise, but it was all jumbled up and indecipherable, because he couldn’t focus. There was just this overwhelming burning sensation, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. This wasn’t falling off his bicycle and scraping his knee, or getting beat up at school, or falling down the stairs. This was a gun shooting into his body, and it hurt like hell.

His racing heart and burning lungs demanded more air and deeper breaths, but breathing only made his wound sting worse. He groaned and tried to move, but found himself immobilized when he began to cough, shoulders shaking. Then he discovered a metallic taste on his tongue, and then he felt the blood dripping from his mouth and down his chin. 

There was a scream, a tumble of words. Lance knew them, but his brain was panicking too much at the moment to translate them.

“Lance!” 

And then there was someone in front of him, staring down. Keith. Relief washed over Lance. At least he was okay. This was good. It’d be far worse if Keith had been shot. The team needed Keith. 

So why did he look so distraught?

“Lance! What...why would you..?” he exclaimed, sounding slightly angry as his eyes flitted all over the place, to assess the injuries, is what Lance assumed. 

“You…were..gonna..get shot,” managed Lance, before breaking out into another coughing fit, blood continuing to trickle out his mouth.

“So you decided to get shot instead!?” 

Lance nodded. He knew Keith would get it. 

Or maybe not.

“Why?”

Lance blinked tiredly up at him, somehow registering his expression as fear. Keith was scared? Man he must be hallucinating. 

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Lance didn’t catch the reply because his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, drooping down to a shut. But they fluttered back open when he felt Keith flick him lightly on the forehead. 

He heard him say something else, probably telling him to stay awake or something, he didn’t know. Isn’t that what happened in movies? But he left that train of thought for another one when he spotted Keith’s black hair falling over his shoulders. Lance reached up with a hand to feel it. Black and smooth and soft and shiny. Hm. It felt nice. 

His hand fell back down, and gravity pulled at Lance’s eyelids again, stronger this time, coaxing them down to cover his eyes and let darkness eat up everything. But they snapped open when pain oh god PAIN erupted from his wound. Keith had poked him! Where he’d gotten shot!

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” apologized Keith sincerely. “But just hang on a little longer. You have to stay awake. The others will be here soon and you’ll be fine. You just can’t sleep. Ok?”

Lance said nothing.

"Lance. You have to stay awake. _Ok?_ "

Lance forced himself to nod. Then he frowned as he remembered why they’d come to this planet in the first place.  
The crystals that powered the castle’s particle barrier were cracking from age and use, and they’d come to this planet to scavenge more. There weren’t supposed to be any Galra soldiers here as they’d already mined most of the planet ages ago, but apparently some of them had stayed behind to guard the place.

Anyways, they needed those crystals.

“Keith,” rasped Lance, poking weakly at his arm. 

Keith leaned in to hear what he was saying. “Yeah?”

“You need….to get the crystals.” 

He didn’t think it was that outrageous of a statement, but the look that Keith gave him told him otherwise. 

“What? You’re hurt. I’m not going to leave you here to die. We can get them later.”

Lance frowned. What if the Galra were mining the last of the crystals right now? This could be their last chance. 

“But we need the crystals,” he insisted.

“And we need you too,” stated Keith.

Lance gave him a leveled stare. Did they? 

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, glossing over Keith’s response. “But we…but you guys _actually_ need the crystals, ok, just go get them. I’ll be fine, and you’ll be fine.” _Even if I die._

Lance exhaled shakily, the pain in his side refusing to ebb. Maybe it’d be easier if he asked Keith to shoot him. He was going to die anyways, wasn’t he? He could feel it.

-

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed. _You guys actually need the crystals._ What was Lance trying to imply?

“What are you saying? Lance, you’re my teammate. You’re my friend. I’m not going to go searching for some crystals when you’ve literally just been shot.”

When he heard just labored breathing instead of a reply, Keith’s eyes left Lance’s face and traveled down to his wound. That was a lot of blood. A whole lot. He grimaced, and glanced up at the sky worriedly, but none of the other lions were in sight. 

“Guys, where are you?” he hissed into the comms. 

“Keith! We were ambushed by a galra ship on the other side of the planet,” came Shiro’s voice, sounding breathless and edged through his helmet. “How’s Lance?” 

“Not so great. There’s a lot of blood. I don’t know if he can last much longer,” replied Keith, his voice sounding a lot more afraid than he’d like to admit. He heard sounds of worry coming from the other paladins through the comms.

“H-hey.”

Keith looked back down at Lance, who had a strange look in his eyes. 

“You don’t have to worry. I’m sure you guys will find a replacement easily enough.”

Keith’s eyes widened. What? 

“Hey, no, we won’t need a replacement because you’re not going to die, alright?”

Lance smiled wobbly, and it made Keith feel cold. Lance…dying? Right in front of him? There was no way, right? He couldn’t even imagine the team without Lance. Without someone there to bother or bicker with him. Without someone to joke around or to fill the silence with laughter. 

Just thinking about it made him want to puke. He couldn’t see anyone else as the blue paladin. To have someone else there, it would just be wrong. 

He could see a visible shudder run through Lance as he breathed shakily. Keith winced at the thought of how much pain he must be in. This should be him. It should be Lance looking down at him. Lance was more loved. He probably had a family on earth. He had friends. He had so many people who needed him here, so why did he jump in front of him?

-

“Why did you jump in front of me?” questioned Keith, probably as an attempt to keep him awake.

“Because….it would suck….if you died,” was Lance’s immediate response. Although it sounded more like a gasp, and he spoke through clenched teeth because the pain was intensifying. 

“You’re so…. _cool. Skilled, and… stuff_ ,” he breathed. “You…shouldn’t die.”

“But you should?” asked Keith confusedly, a frown apparent on his face.

Lance didn’t know if it was the pain or what, but it seemed that the filter that kept in things that he thought he’d never say aloud had disappeared.

“Well, yeah. It doesn’t matter as much, does it?” His voice had faded to barely a whisper.

Keith made some sort of strangled sound. What, was Lance wrong?

And he really did want to hear what Keith said next, but there was a roaring sound in his ears and then he felt like lava was spilling onto him. It hurt. Everything hurt. 

And then he couldn’t think. Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell, couldn’t speak. He could still feel, could still feel the burning. But he couldn’t do much of anything else. And he couldn’t stay awake.

**Author's Note:**

> so yep this was a quick fic bc i love me some good old langst i barely revised it and it's really bad but hope you enjoyed it nonetheless
> 
> i really like to play around w the idea where lance feels like he's the least important paladin and stuff,,, i tried to find some fics but they were all painfully plain/obvious like lance just saying everything all at once and kind of unrealistically lmao, so i tried to write one myself
> 
> yep,, i'd love to hear what you think !! 
> 
> this was lazy af so the ending is up to your interpretation i guess,,, did he die? or not ,, dun dun dun dun


End file.
